Ebstorf world map

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photo of a replica of the Ebstorf world map

The Ebstorf world map was a medieval world map with a diameter of approx. 3.57 m on 30 parchment sheets sewn together with Jerusalem as the center. With more than 2,300 text and image entries, it was the largest and most extensive mappa mundi (world map) from the Middle Ages as far as we know . It was burned in 1943, reproductions have survived, but cannot fully reproduce the original.

It was named after the place where it was found and probably where it was made, the Benedictine monastery Ebstorf in Ebstorf in the Lüneburg Heath . There she was found in a storage room in 1830; Two parts of the map were destroyed by mouse feeding, including the area of ​​today's Brandenburg . In addition, an approx. 50 × 60 cm large piece of map in the upper right quarter in the area of ​​today's India was cut out shortly after the rediscovery for unknown reasons.

history

Gervasius von Tilbury , an Anglo-Norman cleric who wrote his works, was assumed to be the author of the card for a long time . a. Dedicated to Prince Heinrich the Younger of England and Emperor Otto IV . More recent, especially palaeographic investigations come to different conclusions, which exclude Gervasius as an author: Jürgen Wilke argued in 2001, based on a convincing comparison of manuscripts with documents from the monastery archive, for an origin around 1300 and emphasized that there was no evidence for a connection of the map or of the monastery with Gervasius of Tilbury. Hartmut Kugler supported this dating, based on studies in the context of the new edition in 2007, and worked out that the map also had no verifiable reference to the otia imperialia of Gervasius von Tilbury. He also spoke out in favor of not accepting a large-format template for the card, but argued that certain typographical errors on the card can be explained better if one thinks of book-format cards as a model, whose availability in Ebstorf is also more likely. However, Armin Wolf's suggestion of an older model intended for Otto IV cannot be ruled out. From 1212 (1213) until his death in 1218, the Guelph Otto IV was the de facto regent of the Lüneburg region, as the Guelph heir Otto "the child" was still a minor.

The original kept in the Hanover State Archives was burned during the Second World War in October 1943 during an air raid on Hanover . From 1950 to 1953, four copies of a color replica in original size were created using old facsimile editions from 1891 and 1896. A digital reconstruction was developed at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and was published in book form at the end of 2006. The publisher Kugler estimates that this new edition, which has been researched over years, reproduces approx. 80% of the original. An interactive version of the map has been prepared for the Internet by the Leuphana University of Lüneburg (see web link ); all Latin texts have been translated.

Content

Map section (lower left quadrant) with Braunschweig and the Braunschweig Lion .

The map shows the globe around the world; it is oriented so that the east is on top. There is also the pictorial representation of paradise . Jerusalem is in the center of the map . Europe is shown in the lower left corner. There you will find cities such as B. Nienburg (Saale) , Soest , Lüneburg , Braunschweig , Meißen , Aachen , Cologne , Kulmbach and Rome . Crete , Delos , Carpatos and the nine Aeolian Islands are shown twice for reasons that are not clear. In total, the map entries are divided into 1,500 text entries, 500 representations of buildings, 160 bodies of water, 60 islands and mountains, 45 people and mythical creatures and approx. 60 animals.

The author's intention was not to make a geographically correct map of the world. The city of Rome , for example, is almost as big as the island of Sicily . Rather, the map reflects the historical, mythological and theological knowledge of that time. The world itself is compared to the body of Christ , recognizable by the head, hands and feet on the edges of the map. If you were to connect the head and the feet as well as the two hands with each other, the shape of a cross would result. The map also shows Paradise, Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel . For example, the representation of the Amazons is based on mythology and ancient legends .

In addition to written sources, the map is likely to contain several previous maps. A new but controversial study takes the view that the conception of the geometric grid on which the structure and systematics of the map is based could have originated on the Reichenau (see under English: Ordo orbis terrae ). A first treatment was then presumably carried out in Braunschweig under Heinrich the Lion and another in the 13th century, possibly in 1243 under Otto the Child of Lüneburg. This last version is the direct submission of the Ebstorf map, whereby the time for the transfer is the finding of the martyrs' graves or the phase of the growing popularity of their veneration. However, there is no trace of the assumed processing stages. The latest research makes it probable that the map was made around 1300 in Ebstorf Monastery.

See also

literature

  • The Ebstorf world map. Annotated new edition in two volumes. Edited by Hartmut Kugler with the collaboration of Sonja Glauch and Antje Willing. Digital image processing Thomas Zapf. Vol. 1: Atlas (175 pages). Vol. 2: Investigations and Commentary. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004117-9 (also the review by Martina Stercken in: sehepunkte 8 (2008), No. 5 from May 15, 2008)
  • The beautiful Ebstorferin in: Bild der Wissenschaft 11/2007
  • Brigitte English: Ordo orbis terrae. The world view in the Mappae mundi of the early and high Middle Ages (= imaginary worlds of the Middle Ages 3, ed. By Hans-Werner Goetz, Wilfried Hartmann and others), Berlin 2002, esp. Pp. 464–495.
  • Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Ebstorf Monastery , pp. 152–155, in: If stones could talk , Volume I, Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1989, ISBN 3-7842-0397-3 .
  • Jürgen Wilke, Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte (publications by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen 39). Text and panel volume, Bielefeld 2001, ISBN 3-89534-335-8 . Review (dating around 1300)
  • Armin Wolf : Ebstorf world map . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 3, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-7608-8903-4 , Sp. 1534 f.
  • Armin Wolf: Gervasius von Tilbury, Arelatic Marshal Otto IV and the Ebstorf world map. In: Otto IV. - Emperor and sovereign. Castles and Church Buildings 1198–1218 , ed. by Bernd Ulrich Hucker and Joachim Leuschner (= Salzgitter-Jahrbuch 29), Salzgitter 2009, pp. 157–187.
  • Joachim G. Leithäuser : Mappae Mundi - Die Geistige Eroberung der Welt (with 18 color plates, 73 art print plates and 40 illustrations in the text), Berlin 1958.

Web links

Commons : Ebstorfer Weltkarte  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ H. Kugler (Ed.), Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte Vol. II (Berlin 2007) 12.
  2. ↑ Gerd Spies (Ed.): Braunschweig - The image of the city in 901 years. History and Views , Volume 2: Braunschweigs Stadtbild , Braunschweig 1985, p. 17
  3. ^ Michael Römling: Soest - Geschichte einer Stadt , 2nd edition (November 2006, Tertulla-Verlag, ISBN 398107100X ), p. 39
  4. ↑ J. Wilke: The Ebstorfer Weltkarte (Bielefeld 2001) 11 with note 14.